Talk:God Save the Queen (Motörhead song)

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[edit] Edits

Removed song lyrics as potential copyvio - emailed motorhead official website 'talk to band' and asked the man himself for his permission. Alf 21:45, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

It has been suggested that this article be merged with God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols song), please comment here;

  • I oppose merging: I Heard It Through the Grapevine being just one example of how confusing and unattractive to read these articles become. Alf melmac 20:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Considering there's very little information here, and it's the same song, I see no reason to have a separate article. Would you prefer there were multiple versions of the Grapevine article? It's pretty standard to have an article on the original version of a song (when, as in this case, it's by far the most well known) with some mention of other somewhat notable cover versions within that article. Imagine if we had a different article for every recording of "Yesterday". -R. fiend 20:18, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. The "notable cover versions" should/could be listed in a special paragraph within the article on the song proper. The article about the cover artist (in this case Motorhead)could then contain a link to that special paragraph. Now, the punk rock version of God Save the Queen belongs to the Sex Pistols in the first place, where it should be. Even Lemmy would probably agree.Chingon86 10:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I am agreed that there was no consenus in this case. Either here or on the WP:SONGS talk page where kingboyk sums it up pretty smartly in his opening statement. Bubba hotep 21:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Please also see Talk:Not Fade Away (song).--Alf melmac 14:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Have left a note on their talk page. Hopefully they will be joining us soon for some discussion on the matter. Bubba hotep 14:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
This particular page does not worry me so much as some others, as there is little information as yet and it does not impair discography navigation and accessibility to the information, the balance in the Sex Pistols version is not disturbing for a reader of either discography. As I said, this has to be taken on a case by case thing now we're so deep into naming convention. I am happy to wait to see what consensus does form on the issue of song and single. --Alf melmac 14:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, well, at least it may spur the discussion towards a final consensus for future instances. :) Bubba hotep 15:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

While there may not have been a "consensus to merge", there is not a consensus to have separate articles on the same song either. In any case, the main objection seemed to be the "I Heard It Through the Grape Vine" article was a bit of a mess, which is hardly relevant in any case (and last I checked, the article seemed OK, by wiki-standards). What we have here is a stub devoid of any real meaningful information on a song which already has a pretty complete and well-written (from a glance at least) article. The redirect gives a much more complete view, with information about the music, lyrics, and greater significance, as opposed to a template and a few sentences. It's the same song. Are we to have a separate article every time one band covers another band's song? In a case in which two versions are both very well-known and significant, this might make sense, but that is clearly not the case here. This idea of having multiple articles when one works just fine is one of the reasons wikipedia has over 1.5 million articles, but only a fraction of which are of any quality.

The only reason this is an issue at all is because this is a "single", and someone somewhere deicded that all singles are notable. I'm not sure exactly why that happened, but in any case "singles" are already a pretty dated concept of commercial packaging of a song. They've hardly even existed as a real entity since they pulled the cassingle in the 90s. Songs have been around for thousands of years, and songs last forever. People will probably be singing "She Loves You" for centuries; the idea of it as a single is already passed. Singles, even in their heyday, were consumer products that were available for sale for a couple months. Their release is a level of measuring the notability of a song, but it is hardly the most significant element. We have many articles on songs that were never singles, and are completely separated from the conept of singles (see Child Ballads for examples). Sure, if people want to write articles for every single released (and it seems they will), which 90% of the time are a template and a few statistics, then they can knock themselves out. But they should not pre-empt articles on songs, which actualy have a meaning an an effect on people in a way that a 7" record, a music video, or a record company's promotion of a given song (which is all singles are anymore, generally) never can. This isn't "God Save the Queen", the Motorhead song, it's "God Save the Queen" the Sex Pistols song, Motorhead (and many other bands) just played it. The merge/redirect keeps the information intact without messing up the other article (lest anyone worries), and goves a hell of a lot more information, which is what wikipedia is supposed to do. -R. fiend 21:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

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